On 6 June, we held this year's E-mentoring Community Day, bringing together nearly 70 mentors, mentees, and parents. The event marked a special milestone for our programme: after many years, we finally had the opportunity to bring together, in person, a community that had spent the school year learning and working together online. The event was organised as part of "Connections", E-mentoring's organisational development project supported by the Stronger Roots programme, which focuses on strengthening community engagement and building long-term relationships.

One of the defining features of E-mentoring is that mentors and mentees connect online from different parts of Hungary. This allows children who might otherwise have limited access to regular educational support to receive consistent, personal mentoring. At the same time, online mentoring has its natural limitations: a shared sense of belonging and community becomes even stronger when people have the opportunity to meet face to face.

The day was opened by Tibor Prievara, one of the founders of E-mentoring and Chair of the Board of Trustees, together with Lilla Lukács, the programme coordinator. They were followed by a series of interactive activities led by drama educator Petra Prainer, who has been supporting E-mentoring's professional work for many years and knows the community and its values well.

Through playful drama-based activities, participants had the opportunity to get to know one another while naturally developing their communication and teamwork skills. Exercises such as creating "freeze-frame" scenes or arranging themselves by birth month encouraged creativity, active listening, and collaborative problem-solving. 

It was particularly inspiring to see children, young people, parents, and mentors participating together as equal members of the community. Moments like these help ensure that E-mentoring is not only an online mentoring programme, but also a genuine, supportive community.

The activities were followed by lunch and informal conversations, creating even more opportunities for participants to connect. During this time, we also took our annual group photo - one we are especially proud of this year, with nearly 70 smiling faces in it. We concluded the day with an E-mentoring-themed quiz, where the top participants won board games. In addition, everyone received an E-mentoring gift package, marking another special milestone for our organisation: for the first time in our history, we were able to create our own branded merchandise. Before saying goodbye, we also collected participants' feedback about the event.

The Community Day once again demonstrated that mentoring is about much more than learning - it is about building relationships, trust, and a sense of belonging. These face-to-face encounters complement our online work by strengthening the connections between mentors, mentees, and their families.

The event also fulfilled one of the key objectives of the Stronger Roots programme: strengthening an active, connected community. We are especially proud of what we achieved together that day.

This project was supported by the NIOK Foundation within the framework of the Stronger Roots programme, which is funded by the European Union’s Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) programme.

The views and opinions expressed, however, are those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the NIOK Foundation. Neither the European Union nor the NIOK Foundation can be held responsible for them.